> $400.
That means we'll be fundraising for that first before fundraising for
the next generation $2,500 system which would have IPMI stuff included.
Can you get these things with serial console support as well or would we
still need a separate emmbeded solution for that?
But it would indeed be cool to have one this generation server over the
DIY approach, and I could support trying raise money for that before
moving on to the next big thing.
But perhaps others might not be enthused to give us $400.. some points
on where this may not seem worthwhile enough:
The features we will not be able to do with a DIY solution:
- "safe" power on-off (press the power button and wait for shutdown,
rather than hard power off
Host OS has to still be functioning enough to respond to a soft power
off. I don't think it will be too often that we lose the serial console
but the host OS remains otherwise fine enough to perform a soft
shutdown. We can come on in for those situations.
- external modem connection (we could hook up a 56k dialup server to use
this server as an access point to dial in and troubleshoot ISP or router
issues)
I don't think folks will be stocked about adding a another $25/month
ongoing cost (phone line) at this point. (see next post)
And we're probably going to have a second internet connection sooner
rather than later.
The general point here is that if things get really bad someone can just
come on in, it's not like we're colocating in another city.
Worst case downtime before action is that things go down sometime just
before folks go to bed and nobody can get in until after work the next
day. (~16 hours). I don't think the frequency of that kind of outage
weighted against the level of importance of the things being hosted is
such to motivate folks to want to pour $400 into this. (but as I say,
I'm all for it if it does come to pass)
Best case downtime before action is during most weekdays in business
hours where I'm a five minute walk away -- my employer let's me run off
for that kind of thing.
- Virtual Media --- LOCAL virtual media (we can proably find a way to do
virtual-media-over-ip, but this could be horrendously slow; It'd be much
better to FTP ISO images to the USB key in this card, then run the boot
sequence from there).
This is for reloading the host OS or trying to solve a problem with with
booting the host OS via live media -- again I think if things get that
bad someone can come on in.
But would indeed be great to have -- the only way to rig up something
similar via a silly DIY approach would be to have a USB key (already
preloaded with rescue system) on a USB hub, and to keep that power to
that hub off (remote power) until you need to do a reboot with the USB
key enabled.
Okay, yuck, you're right on this, forget gurilla IPMI....
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